1. Field
Apparatuses and methods consistent with exemplary embodiments relate to a spatial light modulator and a holographic display apparatus including the spatial light modulator, and more particularly to, a spatial light modulator providing improved image quality and a holographic display apparatus including the spatial light modulator.
2. Description of the Related Art
Glass-required three-dimensional (3D) technology and glasses-free 3D technology are widely used to present a 3D image. Examples of the glass-required three-dimensional (3D) technology include deflected glasses-type methods and shutter glasses-type methods. Examples of the glasses-free 3D technology include lenticular methods and parallax barrier methods. These methods use binocular parallax and increasing the number of viewpoints is limited. In addition, these methods may make the viewers feel tired due to the difference between the depth perceived by the brain and the focus of the eyes.
Recently, holographic display methods have been suggested to have the brain feel consistency between the perceived depth and the focus of the eyes. According to a holographic display technique, when reference light is emitted onto a hologram pattern having recorded thereon an interference pattern obtained by interference between object light reflected from an original object and the reference light, the reference light is diffracted and an image of the original object is reproduced. When a currently commercialized holographic display technique is used, a computer-generated hologram (CGH), rather than a hologram pattern obtained by directly exposing an original object to light, is provided as an electric signal to a spatial light modulator. Then, the spatial light modulator forms a hologram pattern and diffracts reference light according to the input CGH signal, thereby generating a 3D image.